


assumption of risk

by mythpoetry



Series: Samifer Love Week 2016 [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Lucifer is the constant tear in the fabric of the universe, M/M, Sam Winchester is universally the odd man out, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, brief mention of self harm motivated by curiosity, excessive philosophizing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-28 23:14:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7660882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythpoetry/pseuds/mythpoetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone knows having a soulmate leaves a mark on you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	assumption of risk

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Samifer Love Week 2016  
> July 28th prompt: Soulmates AU

_Show you mine if you show me yours_ _._ Every day, nonstop from grade school with its hordes of giggling cliques all the way through high school letterman jackets and coffee snuck from the teacher’s lounge. _Show you mine if you show me yours._ Even through adulthood; the posturing was different, the intentions secreted away in small talk and innuendo, but it still shone like a knife under all interaction, and the mental gymnastics of navigation were exhausting to Sam. He always braced himself for inevitable unpleasantness. “What’s it like?” they’d ask. “Yours?”

Sam wants to tell them, quiet, cold. Grim and empty starlight. A swarm of innocent monsters wrapped up for him, every part and parcel, shining in the dark.

Instead he smiles, all teeth. Maybe laughs a little. Always responds, “Don’t have one. It’s a relief, honestly.” 

 

*

Soul mates, by definition, are liminal. They creep in hollow places. Dean talks often about feeling like something’s always shining a light in all the shadows of himself that he’d rather not think about, but he doesn’t say it like he minds. Sam thinks it must be nice. To feel that closeness, the solidarity even in the isolation and separation of flesh. All he feels is cold and vague awe that flashes sometimes, when he’s alone. Sam sees Dean grab his mark every once in awhile, a handprint on his left shoulder, as if to anchor himself.

There’s nothing on Sam. His body doesn’t even hold scars well. They fade within a week. When he was a teenager he cut himself out of fascination, to see if he could change anything, leave any kind of impression on himself. Nothing worked. His skin doesn’t seem to belong to himself; he can alter nothing about it.

“Maybe you don’t have one,” Dean says casually one afternoon, like it’s nothing, like he’s not an absolute freak. “Which is kind of good, I guess. It means you get to choose.”

“Nobody ever gets to choose,” Sam says.

What he doesn’t tell Dean is that his body suffers no disfigurement, not even when it’s intentional. He doesn’t tell Dean that he feels cold all the time, down to his bones. He doesn’t tell Dean that at night he can hear someone whispering in his ear.

 

*

“I can hear you,” Sam says to his dark room. For the past hour, nothing but the soft shift of feathers, a ringing echo like distantly breaking glass. Every so often, the burning clarity of something real, something solid, a cacophony of  _light,_ deep and shining -

_Does the man who creates a work of art truly own his creation? Does the creation belong to the public? How far can the morality of influence extend before it snaps under its own wing? Is it moral to rebel against a senseless authority? Does it serve justice to sacrifice the virtuous for the unvirtuous? Does it serve justice to torment those who will not bend their knee to a tyrant? Sam. Sam._

“I hear you,” Sam says.

_Sam. Do you hear me? I want you to think. I want you to think, Sam. I want you to think about why I would never lay a hand on you, mark you, scar you so that you would be defined and limited. I want you to think about why you seem to be alone in the world, and how all that means is that you are unique among billions. I want you to think about how greatness is never achieved by being unwilling to isolate yourself._

_I want you to think about inflicting your will upon the world._

“I hear you,” Sam says, over and over again, in darkness, praying for a response. “Wherever you are. Come find me. I hear you.”


End file.
